Then creation recognized its Creator
in its own forms and appearances.
For in the beginning, when God said, “Let it be!”
and it came to pass, the means and the Matrix of creation was Love,
because all creation was formed through Her as in the twinkling of an eye.
The Holy Spirit as Sapientia St. Hildegard von Bingen
Perhaps the Divine Mother is calling Her prodigal children back home to her waiting arms. Perhaps She is reminding us that there is much in the unseen that our modern world gravely needs. Grace. Compassion. The belief in the power of love to conquer injustice and evil.”
-Mary Saracino, She Is Everywhere
― Hafez
“It is possible that the next Buddha will not take the form of an individual.
The next Buddha may take the form of a community —
a community practicing understanding and loving kindness,
a community practicing mindful living.
This may be the most important thing we can do for the survival of the Earth.”
– Thich Nhat Hanh –
Self-pity is the worst poverty;
it overwhelms man until he sees nothing but illness, trouble and pain.
Bowl of Saki, January 29, by Hazrat Inayat Khan
If one studies one’s surroundings one finds that those who are happy are so because they have less thought of self. If they are unhappy it is because they think of themselves too much. A person is more bearable when he thinks less of himself. And a person is unbearable when he is always thinking of himself. There are many miseries in life, but the greatest misery is self-pity.
Man is mostly selfish, and what interests him is that which concerns his own life. Not knowing the troubles of the lives of others he feels the burden of his own life even more than the burden of the whole world. If only man in his poverty could think that there are others who are poorer than he, in his illness that there are others whose sufferings are perhaps greater than his, in his troubles that there are others whose difficulties are perhaps greater than his! Self-pity is the worst poverty. It overwhelms man and he sees nothing but his own troubles and pains, and it seems to him that he is the most unhappy person in the world, more so than anyone else.
A great thinker of Persia, Sa’di, writes in an account of his life, ‘Once I had no shoes, I had to walk barefoot in the hot sand, and how miserable I was. Then I met a man who was lame, for whom walking was very difficult. I bowed down to heaven at once and offered thanks that I was much better off than he who had not even feet to walk upon.’ This shows that it is not a man’s situation in life, but his attitude towards life that makes him happy or unhappy. …
When Jesus Christ said, ‘Seek ye first the kingdom of God,’ this teaching was an answer to the cry of humanity: some crying, ‘I have no wealth,’ others crying, ‘I have no rest,’ others crying, ‘My situation in life is difficult,’ My friends are troubling me,’ or, ‘I want a position, wealth.’ The answer to them all is, ‘Seek ye first the kingdom of God, and all these things shall be added unto you.’
The Opening (fath) is the sudden opening of Divine Reality and thus the end of illusion. It is like a snow ball thrown into the ocean, the snowball symbolising the nafs or ego and the ocean being Divine Reality. The snow ball is nothing else than frozen water and when thrown into the ocean it becomes water again, like a small drop in the ocean. The ego has only an transitory existence which is mere illusion if it is taken on its own separated from its origin. In like manner to the snow ball if one is sure of one’s own present state, and one’s consistence of the moment, it appears very different from water as if it were made of a different substance and has a quite different nature, in reality it consists only of a few drops of water similar to all the other drops in the ocean. There is only one water but it exists in different forms and states.
There is no reality but Divine Reality.’ La ilaha IL L’ALLAH ‘ (There is no Deity except Allah)
Shaykh Sidi Hamza el Qadiri el Boutchichi
Blessings of Light 